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Accountants had final say on Bombardier, RMT discovers

Accountants, not engineers, had a bigger say in deciding who won the contract for building the new Thameslink trains.

Almost 1,500 workers at in Derby will lose their jobs, and nearly 1,000 companies stand to lose out on indirect work as a result of the government’s decision to award the contract for building the fleet to German company Siemens rather than Bombardier.

On the first day of the Tory Party conference rail union RMT has revealed that through a written answer from the House of Lords, only two out of nine officials advising on the project had engineering backgrounds.

RMT general secretary Bob Crow said: ““The news that there were more accountants than engineers involved in assessing the Thameslink contract is yet more evidence as to how the betrayal of Bombardier was allowed to happen.

“This shameful episode has been dominated by accountants and management consultants on fat fees while the engineering excellence of Bombardier at Derby has been totally ignored.

“No wonder nobody spotted the fact that Siemens don’t even have the crucial bogie in production while Bombardier’s wheel and chassis unit is rated as the best in the world. That’s what happens when you put bean-counters and politicians in charge of key engineering decisions that have the power to destroy train making in the nation that gave the railways to the world.”